For the past 7 years, I have…

For the past 7 years, I have worked at a local tourist camp as a labourer and one of my many roles at my place of employment is selling bait. I am writing to express my concerns as the new policy that is being proposed will be unenforceable, it will put many small businesses and bait shops out of business and negatively impact the rest, and most importantly will be ineffective in preventing the spread of invasive species. 

This camp is located in a waterway provincial park along the English river system in Northwestern Ontario. This new policy would prevent our guests from being able to use bait fish as they have been for many years. This will lead to our camp losing business which will greatly impact their overall revenue and the revenue of all the places they stop and spend money at on their way here (restaurants, gas stations, bait stores, etc.). It will especially effect the bait stores they frequent along the way since they will not be able to transfer bait fish between zones. Many of their guests come through Thunder Bay on their way to Ignace and stop to get leeches on route which they will no longer be able to do. All of this is happening because the proposal suggests we should divide NWO, where there isn't an invasive species problem, into several smaller zones. It would make much more sense to combine zones 1, 2, & 3 since they are in the north, and divide southern Ontario into smaller zones where the problem exists.   

In addition to the economic impact, this new proposal will not help prevent the spread of invasive species into the English River or Press Lake since only a portion of this massive waterway is in the park. Directly south east of our location is Barrel Lake and south east of it is the border of the waterway park. As we know water flows North West in this area meaning any invasive species used mere kilometres away are still going to enter Press Lake and then spread through the rest of the system. This is not an isolated situation. Our area is only one example of many where fisherman will not be able to use bait fish in a provincial park that has several other "unprotected" rivers flowing in and out of the park boundaries.

Another point to be made speaking to the ineffectiveness of this proposal is that it will not effect the indigenous populations of Ontario. Only restricting the use of bait fish for a portion of the fisherman population across the province will not help prevent the spread of invasive species. This is a serious concern for North Western Ontatio since a large portion of the population are indigenous. Bait fish will still be able to move freely about the north by a very large number of anglers. Anglers and businesses will all be impacted by this proposal and there is still a very high chance that our waterways will not be protected.

Although the idea of preventing the spread of invasive species is very good, this proposal does very little in the way of actually accomplishing that. All it really does is impact small business and over regulate and over complicate anglers ability to fish. I know from personal experience that the tourists that travel long distances, usually from the United States of America, and spend lots of money to go fishing in Canada will quit doing so if it becomes too difficult and over regulated. As a child that grew up in a small town that thrived solely on tourism, the impact that this proposal could have would be devastating to our small community and many others. I fully support protecting the water way that supports my business but this proposal is not the answer and could do irreversible damage to hundreds of businesses and the tourism industry which supports NWO.

[Original Comment ID: 209905]